“The Dangers of Computer-Science Theory”, 1973 (; backlinks; similar):
This chapter discusses the difficulties associated with the computer-science theories.
The theory of automata is slowly changing to a study of random-access computations, and this work promises to be more useful. Any algorithm programmable on a certain kind of pushdown automaton can be performed efficiently on a random-access machine, no matter how slowly the pushdown program runs.
Another difficulty with the theory of languages is that it has led to an overemphasis on syntax as opposed to semantics. For many years there was much light on syntax and very little on semantics; so simple semantic constructions were unnaturally grafted onto syntactic definitions, making rather unwieldy grammars, instead of searching for theories more appropriate to semantics.
Theories are often more structured and more interesting when they are based on real problems; somehow they are more exciting than completely abstract theories will ever be.
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